TEST
I tend to have pretty tepid feelings towards secret clubs in romances, whether they’re historical or contemporary. There’s something about the idea of all these sex clubs, gaming hells and what have you operating in secret and yet always making gobs of money and never seeming to require much – if any – work to run them that bores me. But I have to say, Dare to Love a Duke is going to be an exception to that rule. We get to see the hard work and manpower (or womanpower in this case) that keeps the Orchid Club running while it’s under constant threat of discovery, and yet this is still a dead sexy book.-
Lucia has worked her way up from living in the streets to managing the Orchid Club, a secret sex club that allows members from all incomes and backgrounds. She’s no stranger to hard work and struggle, and her priority is keeping the business running smoothly to keep the staff paid, and so that she can use her own income to start a home for educating and housing other unfortunate young girls. As such, she isn’t one to take time for herself or dally with patrons. Until Tom…
Thomas Powell has been visiting the Orchid Club for a year, but not to partake in any of its varied and lascivious activities. No, he’s there only for Lucia. He’s been smitten by Lucia’s professional and almost regal demeanor in how she keeps the business running, and visits weekly to flirt with the enigmatic woman in hopes she might one day be his. When his father dies and he becomes Duke of Northfield, Tom realizes his visits will need to come to an end, as he’s going to need to buckle down and get serious about taking on the weight of his father’s title and legacy. But first, he wants one night with Lucia. They share what is meant to be a single night of passion without strings, but when it is revealed that Tom’s late father was actually the owner of the Orchid Club, and that the ownership has now passed to Tom, they find themselves entangled outside of the bedroom as well.
It’s hard to decide which character I was more enamored with, Tom or Lucia. Or maybe it was Lucia’s staff at the Orchid. Tom is head over heels for Lucia from the beginning and knows he wants to be with her in spite of his title and status. He’s torn between doing what his family wants, what society expects, and protecting the club because of his feelings for Lucia. I really loved how he couldn’t seem to stay away from Lucia, and their rendezvous were sexy, but also charming and heartwarming. I don’t know if I’ve ever called a romance novel homey before, but something about the time the pair spends together was comforting in a homey way. He’s at peace with Lucia, and hidden in the staff areas of the Orchid he can shed societal expectations and just be with her, and I loved that. So often in historical romance the character of higher social standing lifts the other character up to their level with lavish gifts, or stays in a fancy home. In Dare to Love a Duke we get to see Tom experiencing something of Lucia’s way of life, and learning how difficult it is to be an unmarried woman without money than he had ever understood
Which brings me to Lucia. Part of what I enjoy so much about Eva Leigh’s work is her heroines, who are experienced, fully rounded people. Lucia emerged from extreme poverty and did what she needed to get by, including working as a sex worker some time, though it isn’t dwelt on. Her past has shaped her into someone strong, but caring. She has two people who live at the Orchid with her who are lovely, and are like her family. She wants the entire staff to continue to draw pay because she knows how much a little extra money can mean in dire straits. And she is always trying to help those less fortunate than herself, without coming off like a phony paragon of virtue rather than a real person.
Dare to Love a Duke is one of those great stories where you can root for both characters and genuinely want them together, because they deserve to be happy. It’s also incredibly sexy. The novel does take place in a sex club and there are brief mentions of the activities that take place there, but the steaminess is all Tom and Lucia and the sparks they set off together.
Ever since I read Temptations of a Wallflower, Eva Leigh has been at the top of my list of authors to watch, and I’m so glad I read this book. It’s perfectly romantic, sexy, charming, and kept me turning pages late in the night. I also liked the small nods to more inclusion, such as a prominent lesbian couple and mentions of other same-sex relations, rather than pretending a sex club would never see such a thing. Since it releases on Christmas Eve and some might be wondering, there is a tiny bit of holiday celebrating to be found in the epilogue, but don’t go in expecting a Christmas romance.
I jumped into this book without reading the first two in the London Underground series, but I’ll be remedying that right away!
Buy it at: Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes & Noble/Kobo
Visit our Amazon Storefront
Grade: A-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 26/12/18
Publication Date: 12/2018
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Haley K is a librarian-of-all-trades, book reviewer, writer, perpetual student, as well as a pretty crafty chick. She lives in Texas with too many pets and too little sleep.
Related Reviews
I have, for what it’s worth, an undergraduate degree in history. My undergraduate thesis was on the case of Junius Irving Scales–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junius_Scales–who was the first and at the time I wrote it the only US citizen to ever have been jailed for simply being a member of the Communist Party. I spent months reading about how, over and over again, the white, wealthy, and powerful used every tool they could find to silence those who championed a side they felt threatened by. My degree itself is in American history with a focus on the repression of black, brown, and red populations. I don’t think it’s a stretch to fear that that happy endings in love affairs involving those who power sees as a threat are likely to be hard to come by. Impossible? No. But unlikely, yes.
I read this over the holiday yesterday; it was excellent, and I totally believed in the HEA!
That’s lovely–I’ve enjoyed other of Leigh/Archer’s work.
It’s incredibly difficult and sadly very rarely done. The pressure on authors to put out more than one book a year isn’t helping either, because authors, especially of historicals, have less time for research and to construct plausible plots.
But the problem of creating heroines with enough agency to satisfy younger audiences is a big one – and at the moment, all I see is many authors (particularly the newer ones) moving farther and farther into the realms of implausibility to the detriment of their characters and stories.
I think this is why I have slowly been shifting over to contemporary romances. I’ve always been a steadfast historical romance reader, but fewer historical authors work for me right now. I love Sherry Thomas’s Lady Sherlock books because she has created an iconoclastic heroine who is not meant to be viewed as “realistic” or a prototype for all women in the 19th century. And Thomas is just so good at interrogating the values and customs of the historical moment. Few historical authors can do this though, or at least are doing this well in our current moment.
I feel as though writers are trying to find a compromise between current values and old times. It’s very hard to do.
Really? A sex club worker and a Duke? I’m all for Eva Leigh’s work but this sounds impossible to believe.
Agreed. I’ve been on the fence about this one, especially as I so disliked the previous book in the series. I’ve enjoyed many books by this author though, so I might give it a go.
I must be jaded at this point, because if I saw a romance titled “The Duke and the Streetwalker”, it wouldn’t be in the least surprising.
Marian, this comment shows some pretty serious bias against sex workers. Many women sold sex in the past, and many still do now. Plenty of romances have already featured courtesans and mistresses, so why is this any different?
Romance is generally sex-positive and feminist, but comments like this aren’t.
Heh. My first published romance featured a heroine who was a well-known sex worker and a hero who was a baron, so somehow my “pretty serious bias” against sex workers must have gone unnoticed by reviewers.
Then again, that romance wasn’t set in historical England. As Dabney said, certain contexts make the HEA less easy to achieve than others.
I apologize for the misunderstanding! There have been some pretty negative comments on Twitter, where a lot of this debate is happening, so I saw yours and assumed it was an insult to sex workers. Should have Googled first.
Why is this less believable than any other plot in historical romance? This is a genre that embraces wallflower scientists, secret heiresses, long-lost twins, maids masquerading as duchesses, masked vigilantes, amnesia, women secretly running gaming hells, virgins having multiple orgasms from penetration alone, even ghosts! Least believable of all is the existence of so many handsome, super rich dukes with hearts of gold.
What you’re saying here is that you find a sex worker heroine unworthy of the kind of happy ending the romance genre is made of. Why is this plot any less believable than a hundred others? Courtesan and mistress romances have been around for ages, as well–I’m curious if you had the same response to those.
Whenever we as readers feel the impulse to declare someone’s happy ending unbelievable because of who they are or what they do, it’s a good opportunity to examine our own biases. I recommend taking a step back and thinking about why you are so dismissive of this plot in particular.
I agree with the point made at Smart Bitches about this book. Redheadedgirl wrote that while she liked the idea of a former sex worker who gets an HEA, it was hard to believe, in this echelon of society, in a happy outcome.
I’m all for everyone finding their HEA. But some contexts make that goal seem almost impossible.
I would view any of those characters/plotlines with similar reservations. The issue – for me – has nothing to do with the heroine’s profession; it’s the cross-class element that doesn’t always work. As I clearly stated in another comment, I haven’t read this yet, so I can’t say if Ms. Leigh makes it work or not – she’s a terrific writer and I hope she does – clearly that’s the reviewer’s opinion.
Oh, and by the way, I would welcome (with open arms) more non-duke books!
FWIW, I wrote a historical romance with a hero who worked as an architect. One comment from a literary agent was that I should consider making him the heir to a fortune.
I’m now working on a HR where the hero is a viscount, but if I can’t get any interest in this story, I suppose I could try again with a duke, if that’s what sells.